Brick hammers are especially constructed for the performing various operations required during the laying of bricks. Thus, they are conventionally provided with an enlarged and hence relatively heavy head that terminates forwardly in a relatively flat face adapted to be struck against a brick without damaging the brick. Rearwardly from the head, the hammer narrows to a tail which terminates rearwardly in a cutting edge which can be wider than the head and which is used to score a brick, for the purpose of locating and directing a subsequent fracture of the brick.
In use, the bricklayer may simply use his hammer to align and properly position bricks that have been laid in wet mortar.
Also, a very important function of a brick hammer is to break bricks of standard size so as to form bricks of smaller size, ordinarily half bricks. To do this, the bricklayer first strikes the brick at the intended fracture point, with the cutting edge on the tail of the hammer so as to initiate fracture of the brick; and then, turning the hammer 180.degree., he strikes the brick with the face on the head of the hammer to one side of the line formed by the cutting edge, so as to break the brick at that line.
The bricks thus broken can be used, at, say, the end of a row of bricks, or in what is known in the art as a "clinker job", in which broken bricks are set at random in a wall achieve a decorative effect, with their broken surfaces protruding somewhat from the wall, so as to relieve what would otherwise be the monotony of a plain brick wall.
It frequently happens that the bricks are set in or closely adjacent wooden framework. This wooden framework may be pre-existing or may be part of the same construction as the bricks that are being laid. In either event, the wooden framing may have protuberant nails that would interfere with the bricks being laid; and so bricklayers have need of a nail pulling tool.